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Space is Key

We've got our first new game added to the arcade a little over a day ago if you haven't already noticed. Space is Key is a simple game controlled purely with the space bar as you jump over obstacles that stand in your way. Each of the game's 15 stages are presented in 3 sections in which there are around two-three obstacles that you need to jump over, through and slide under to progress. The block that you control is constantly moving across the screen so in order to progress you'll need to perfect the timing of the jump. Later levels give you a speed and jump increase to make things a little more difficult. Luckily once you've passed each section of a stage you're checkpointed there making things much less irritating if you get stuck in a particular section.

Screenshot(s):

The game does have a scoring system (based on how many times you die) however it doesn't seem to be tracked on this forum for whatever reason. I'm not sure if this is an error that we need to look at but we're still investigating the process of installing games on this forum.

Review:
What I Like -

One button makes for easy to learn gameplay

Mute button

Difficult, not frustrating

Addictive

What I don't like -

Highscore tracking not working with the site

Music got a little annoying after the first few stages

Space is Key, our first added flash game(!), is a simple puzzle/timing game that will test your reflexes. You're tasked with pressing the space key to jump over obstacles in your way and while the initial levels are simple the difficulty ramps up quickly. Fifteen total levels may not seem like much but it's likely you'll get stuck somewhere around stage 11-13. It may have been my own laptop but the last few levels of the game dropped to something around 10fps and made things much harder than they should be to clear the game.

Gameplay aside I was pleased to see a mute button as soon as the game started. The music is good for a few minutes but eventually grew old rather fast and I like to play my flash games with the sound turned down anyways. The disappointment with Space is Key though is when we installed it on the forums the high score tracking for some reason doesn't work. I'd initially chose this game because I thought it'd be a fun game to use for a forum tournament in the future. Though without a high score tracker we're unable to do so (unless everyone wants to get friendly with their print screen button).

Space is Key is a fun flash game. If you haven't tried it out already then head on over to the CyberStars Arcade and try it out. Personally I think games like this, simple and addictive, would be great to add to the forum and for future tournaments. I'll stay on the lookout for similar games and hopefully ones that will work with the high score tracking here. Let me know what you guys/girls think as it'll help me a lot in knowing what to look for with future flash games.

Rating:4/5 Stars - Simple, addictive and a decent challenge for those with 15 minutes to kill. (Star rating images to come.)

Thread Structure:
I'm still working out the structure of how these threads should go. I'd like to have something similar to how this thread is setup with a structure that's like this:

If there's enough discussion in regards to structure for these flash game threads we could move that into a new thread in the forum but I'd just like to have some input in case I've forgotten something. As far as the Logo | Bullet Point header I've included the three important points that I usually look for in a flash game. If there's something you'd think would be good to include let me know.

At any rate I figure we can use these threads to discuss each game that's added to the arcade. From there we can look at how much activity is going on in the thread and how many people are playing that game to determine which games we should hold tournaments/contests for. (Granted some games probably won't have much to really discuss but I'm sure we'll think of something. Or maybe we can just gloat about our highest score here! )

Sounds like a good format and approach. Another thing we can do is come up with a set of thread prefixes to further categorize the threads in this subforum.
Eg,
REVIEW
TOURNEY
GAME REQUEST
GENERAL COMMENT

I tried the game a few times. I think I got to the 10th level or so. But couldn't get past it. It really does require very precise timing skill. I also found that the response from the keyboard wasn't always consistent.

I can actually set up a prefix table just for this forum. Then when you make a post, you'll just choose from the dropdown list. It forces consistency and makes sure everyone attaches a prefix to their threads which acts as sort of a visual categorization when viewing the thread list in the forum. Just let me know what prefix descriptions you want. It is easy to change/add/delete them down the road as this evolves.